Will Ganesh Chaturthi mark a new beginning for crisis-stricken Goa BJP?

As colourful clay idols of Lord Ganesh are ushered into Hindu homes in Goa ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi, the symbolic significance of the deity, as a remover of obstacles and a god of new beginnings, may well dwell on the minds of state leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The party’s top-rung leaders are battling a crisis of loyalty between their party and the ailing high priest of the BJP in Goa, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who in the past has cleared innumerable political obstacles and ushered new beginnings for the party and its cadre. The 62-year-old former Defence Minister’s persisting illness is now threatening to weigh heavy on the fortunes of his party as well as the BJP-led coalition government that he heads.

Parrikar returned from the US — for the third time in six months — after yet another round of treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer last week, but has failed to attend office.

The question of whether and who will replace Parrikar is still not a subject for on-record conversations for BJP leaders like state party General Secretary Sadanand Shet Tanavde and South Goa MP Narendra Savoikar, who insist that “there is no question of a change in leadership”. But in the sanctuary of an off-record conversation, there is anxiety, anguish and worry — both for Parrikar’s failing health as well as the gaining perception that the Goa BJP and the government are virtually leaderless entities.

There appears to be neither hope, nor a consensus, among the party’s senior leadership about who could potentially replace Parrikar for now, especially since his health is worsening, although the Chief Minister’s Office as well as BJP spokespersons insist that the ailing leader is recovering just fine.

Last month, perhaps Parrikar’s only peer in the Goa BJP in terms of longevity and acceptability among cadre, Union Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Naik, made the first attempt to spark a conversation about “alternative leadership” in Goa, while conceding to a crisis. But within a matter of hours of his presser, a planned trip to Delhi to meet the party High Command by Naik himself and other top party functionaries was called off, after some leaders met Parrikar, who was admitted to a Mumbai hospital.

Since then, Naik too toes the line of “no question of leadership change”. Now that the cry for leadership change has been swiftly squelched, the question is now limited to sincere, but muffled murmurs among BJP leaders, who feel that political ground beneath them is slipping, in the face of a series of scandals — the inaction against those exposed for using carcinogenic agent formalin to preserve fish in a seafood-loving state and the never-ending mining ban and the seeming lack of effort by the state government to overcome it, being the two most significant.

It is not that there aren’t options.

One of the few propped up include Speaker Pramod Sawant, who Parrikar, ignoring protocol, had handpicked to lead the government during the state Independence Day parade.

Alliance partners Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and the Goa Forward Party have also been sounded out or have pushed for merging their legislative units into the BJP as a pre-condition for the top chair, according to sources.

Last week, Goa’s political circles were in a tizzy about former Chief Minister and Congress MLA Digambar Kamat — a favourite of the influential mining lobby — along with other Congress MLAs joining the BJP with the Chief Ministerial berth as a prize for the coup. But Kamat, who on a clear winter day in February 2005 quit the BJP to join the Congress complaining of “suffocation” within the saffron party, has now formally said that no such move was on the cards.

Former Goa Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Subhash Velingkar, who has groomed the top rung of BJP leadership, including Parrikar, Naik and state BJP president Vinay Tendulkar, blames Parrikar for the lack of credible second-rung leaders.

“He (Parrikar) has ensured that there are no second-rung leaders. Laxmikant Parsenkar (former CM), Rajendr Arlekar (Speaker) and Naik have been systematically sidelined, which is the cause of this crisis. Leadership change right now is imperative,” Velingkar told IANS.

One would wonder if Ganesh Chaturthi, with all its inherent symbolism, would usher in a new beginning for the BJP in Goa or, at least for now, clear up the obstacles.

Montreal Protocol on ozone protection survives a hiccup

If you Google “Edmund Hillary” you will get seven million references to his summitting Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1952. But when you Google “George Mallory”, who made a gallant effort 30 years before that but who disappeared on the treacherous slopes, you get nearly 17 million references. It is still a mystery if George Mallory died on the way to summit or while descending after scaling it.

The world is more excited about failures and the mysteries that surround them. It takes more interest in investigating failures than successes. The investigation gets sensational when the post-success enquiry doubts the success itself. No wonder that Sherlock Holmes is more popular than Shakespeare.

A similar mystery-drama is now being played out at United Nations on the Montreal Protocol on the Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

Crafted in 1987, the Montreal Protocol has proved to be different because it has successfully delivered — and delivered in time. In 2010, as stipulated in the rules of this universally-ratified environmental treaty, all the production of chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, the main ozone depleting substance (ODS), was halted in all the producing countries, including India and China. Today, 99 percent of all ODS, including those other than CFCs, have been phased out in developed and developing countries as per the unanimously agreed time-table.

A UN scientific assessment panel confirmed in its 2018 report that concentration of all ODS in the atmosphere was declining as a result of the Montreal Protocol being implemented. Further, it revealed that the ozone layer — the earth’s life shield — was well on the recovery path.

The singular success of the Montreal Protocol is considered an example of what humanity can achieve to reverse environmental degradation.

And then came a jolt.

A paper published in the prestigious science journal Nature, on May 17, 2018, stated that the concentration of CFC-11, one of the two most abundant ozone-depleting ODS, controlled by the Montreal Protocol, “have unexpectedly stopped its decline and in fact increased in recent years despite a global ban on production in 2010”.

So why was this happening? The best scientific brains as well as brash media and brandishing NGOs started brimming with probable answers.

Though production of CFC 11 had stopped in 2010, its stocks from legally produced quantities before January 1, 2010 — the date of global phase out of CFC 11 — continue to emit in the atmosphere, as was expected. The legal stocks in turn can come from two sub-sources: First, the storages of the CFC 11, if those existed, and second, the equipment and the products that contained CFC11 — air-conditioning in commercial buildings and the insulating foams that are blown with CFC11. At its peak, about 350,000 metric tonnes of CFC11 were produced globally per year for such and other minor uses.

The Nature report clearly indicated that first beep of slowing down the decline, in reality, came in 2012. But scientists, overtaken by the successful worldwide closure of CFC 11 production, took some time to ensure that the slowdown was real and not a mistake in measurement. But then, after a longer investigation using updated models, they confirmed the slowdown and said it corresponded to about 13,000 tonnes of CFC 11 being added per year to the huge atmospheric cauldron. That is considered too large an amount to have come from stocks or “banks” — as termed in the Montreal Protocol’s parleys. So, the answer by rule of elimination, pointed towards the new production facility, illegally run somewhere.

Where exactly this production is based has become the subject of international curiosity and is reverberating in the global meetings of the Montreal Protocol.

One more critical dimension to the scientific finding has triggered heightened excitement among the media and NGOs. It is the result of yet another modelling exercise carried out by the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It said that the illegal production may be based in East Asia, hinting at China.

While the NGOs and the media, obsessed by the desire to be visible, went high octane and even visited China for their own investigations, other East Asian producers could be South and North Korea and Japan.

In the Meeting of all the Parties to the Montreal Protocol that concluded earlier this month in Quito, Ecuador, the countries showed restraint and took a unanimous and exemplary decision that calls on the international scientific and technical community to engage in rigorous scrutiny — including review of assumptions and models used so far. This decision, importantly, does not mention China or even East Asia as the region for probable illegal activity.

The meeting, however, clearly belonged to Chinese delegation, which demonstrated a brave and balanced approach when all fingers were pointed at it. Overcoming the classical temptation of choosing to be in “denial mode”, China gave details of a nation-wide investigation that it has carried out involving more than 1,000 enterprises since the publication in Nature and the punitive surveillance the country has conducted in unearthing the concealed illegal production and consumption of CFC 11.

Openly sharing the anxiety surrounding the issue, China admitted to identifying locations of illegal production of CFC 11, though much smaller than what Nature stated. That hinted at the possibility of illegal production at additional places. Aiming to further strengthen its compliance measures, China invited international experts to a proposed seminar next year to exchange information on capacity-building for strict compliance. The Chinese delegation also keenly supported the decision for further study and scrutiny.

The Quito meeting finally turned out to be the exemplary international show of what is expected from the collective wisdom of the nations when faced with unexpected emergence of an aberration that poses a threat to the acclaimed success of the Montreal Protocol.

(Rajendra Shende is Chairman, TERRE Policy Centre and a former UNEP Director. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at [email protected] )

When Syed Fariddudin Qutbi, the “khadim” (attendant) of the shrine of 13th century sufi saint Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki in Meharauli, stepped out after offering a floral “chhatra” (a flower-embellished umberella) at the ancient Yogmaya temple located at a stone’s throw from the dargah, all he had to say was that in the small temple sanctum sanctorum suffused with a strong incense and jasmine fragrance, he felt the same tranquility and a “magnificent, invisible power” he feels at the dargah.

Part of the annual cultural festival “Phool Walon Ki Sair” (Festival of Flower Sellers), an initiative that promotes communal harmony and positive cultural exchanges since early the 1800s, many like Qutbi go beyond the bounds of religious identity, and encourage members of other communities to offer flowers and “pankhas” (fans) at places of worship that are considered not “their own”.

Picture Credit : Wikipedia

The roots of the festival go back to the reign of one of the last Mughal emperors and Bahadur Shah Zafar’s father, Akbar Shah II, who was buried next to the dargah.

Legend has it that when his son Mirza Jahangir was imprisoned on the orders of the British, Akbar Shah’s wife vowed that she would offer a blanket at the sufi saint’s dargah upon his release. As fate had it, Shah’s son was released and the blanket was offered. Upon imperial orders, floral offerings were also made at goddess Yogmaya’s temple, which sparked public enthusiasm, causing it to become an annual tradition.

The festival was stopped in the 1940s when the British started their polarising efforts in line with their “divide-and-rule policy” that led to deep rifts between India’s two major religious communities, Mirza Mohtaram Bakht, secretary of the Anjuman Sair-e-Gul Faroshan, the organisers of the fair, told IANS.

He said the festival was revived in 1961-62 by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. It has, since then, been a regular occurrence and brings together hundreds of Delhi residents each year, Bakht said.

In today’s deeply polarised milieu where hate crimes against specific communities are just as rampant as the venom spewed against them on social media, the assimilating significance of the week-long festival takes a new turn.

“When our Hindu brothers offer a blanket of flowers at the dargah, members of the Muslim community take a step back and let them take the lead. Similarly, Muslim people are encouraged to offer a floral ‘chhatra’ to Devi Yogmaya. It’s a communion of hearts, and that can only happen if there’s ‘pakeezgi’ in people’s souls,” Qutbi told IANS, adding that he recommends extremists of all religions to at least experience other cultures once.

Rajnish Jindal, another resident of Mehrauli, who has been visiting the festival for 15 years, said that it was a matter of developing comfort with all religions and people from all walks of life.

“You go into a gurdwara, you find peace and comfort, that’s your ‘mahzab’ (faith); same is with a mosque or a temple or a church. It should be a matter of personal belief,” he said.

Not surprisingly, the path of “Phool Walon Ki Sair”, is often laden with thorns and threats.

“People say ‘tum karke toh dikhao, hum dekhte hai tum kaise karte ho’ (We’ll see how you do it); not everyone wants a secular nation that celebrates all its religions. It often happens covertly; 11th-hour permissions, indifference and excuses create hurdles for us, even if there is no direct visible opposition.

“We, however, give it back with our enthusiasm. Truth is always victorious. They can’t stop our caravan,” Bakht, a former geologist and a “proud Delhi-wallah”, said.

Kite flying competitions, processions, wrestling bouts, kabbadi and shehnai recitals mark the first four days of the seven-day festival, with offerings in the dargah and the temple earmarked for the fifth and sixth days.

This year, Delhi’s Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal offered the floral blanket at the dargah on Thursday, and Delhi government’s transport minister Kailash Gahlot offered a floral “chhatra” on Friday, along with members of both communities.

“Phool Walon Ki Sair” closed on Saturday with tableaus from over 11 states and a night-long qawwali singing programme.

(The weekly feature series is part of a positive-journalism project of IANS and the Frank Islam Foundation. Siddhi Jain can be contacted at [email protected] )

Was it necessary to kill Avni?

Nagpur: The carcass of tigress Avni or T1 arrives for an autopsy at Gorewada Rescue Centre in Nagpur on Nov 3, 2018. Avni or T1, who is believed to be responsible for killing and devouring 13 humans in the Pandharkawada- Ralegaon forests of Yavatmal district in eastern Maharashtra over the last two years. In September this year, the Supreme Court had said Avni or T1, as she is called, could be shot at sight, which prompted a flurry of online petitions seeking pardon for the tigress. (Photo: IANS)

In November 2012, a tigress and her two cubs began a journey from their home in the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, Uttar Pradesh. She had somewhat uncharacteristically left the forest. Over the next two years, this tigress is recorded to have travelled 260 km — from the Amariya region in Pilibhit, along the Devha river, criss-crossing through the densely-populated village areas of Gularia Bithra, Khali Nawada, Bishanpur, Surajpur, Bhadsara, Dhaki, all the way up to Kanpur, where she was finally sighted in February 2014. A close-knit team comprising officials of the state’s Forest Department and tiger conservators of WWF-India were on the trail of this feline family.

The sketchy story from their sightings, pug mark tracking and camera-trap images unraveled that she was accompanied by her cubs for part of the journey, negotiating past villages, through sugarcane fields and grassy landscapes. On several occasions, she would enter the forest for short durations, only to return to her new habitat. The team speculated whether she had moved out of the forest to protect her cubs from aggressive males. Months later, in September 2014, they also spotted her cubs, now sub-adults, back in Amariya, apparently living and operating independently. Not a single incident of attack on humans or livestock was recorded through this epic journey of this majestic feline and her cubs.

Recently, another nursing tigress’s tryst with humans in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal region did not end so peacefully. Thirteen humans had been found dead in Yavatmal’s Ralegaon forest since June 2016, and Avni or T1, a six-year-old tigress with two 10-month-old cubs, was alleged to have been involved in several of these deaths.

According to a Maharashtra Forest Department official, an investigation had proved that she was responsible beyond doubt for at least two of those deaths. On November 2, this “man-eater”, as she was referred to, was shot dead — by a sharp-shooter appointed by the Forest Department — in the Borati jungles that are under the jurisdiction of Ralegaon police, according to news reports that quoted police sources.

Defending the circumstances of Avni’s death, Sunil Limaye, Maharashtra’s additional principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife), explained that the Pandharkawada forests house approximately seven to eight tigers. Avni and her two cubs occupied 160 square km of this forest. Over two years, based on various circumstantial evidence, the department suspected Avni and a male, T2, of having caused several human deaths. At that point, though, the evidence was not forensic.

“In August, we investigated and managed to find clear evidence of Avni being responsible for at least two of the recent killings. Based on these findings the courts ordered us to capture or kill the tigress. The death of the forest dwellers was a grave loss to their families. These people, whose livelihoods depend on the forests, feared for their lives. We followed the courts’ orders and were saddened by the tigress’s death. But we had no other choice,” he said.

Controversies and political banter surround Avni’s death today. Environment activists and animal lovers question whether the mother tigress could have been saved, or at least captured. Meanwhile, a bitter battle of words has erupted between a Union minister and a state minister, both belonging to the same political party. On Friday, November 9, media reported sources in the Maharashtra government as stating that the yet-to-be-released autopsy report “yielded clear evidence of foul play”. It quoted a state government official: “The forensics clearly show that the tigress was not charging at the team, but instead going somewhere else… If she was charging at the team, she would have been shot in her face or chest, not her shoulder.”

Juxtaposing this story of loss of life, both human and animal, against the epic journey of the Pilibhit tigress, raises several questions. Could Avni have been monitored like the Pilibhit tigress to avoid such a tragedy? Could locals have been better informed to control panic about a “man-eater”?

Did Avni truly turn rogue and kill people since 2016? Even as news reports on her post-mortem reveal that she had not eaten anything for at least a week, Dr. Jimmy Borah, tiger biologist and consultant at Panthera, an international organisation working on the conservation of wild cats, said: “A nursing tigress would probably only attack human beings for self-defense, if she feels her cubs are threatened. It is highly unlikely that she would choose humans as food for her cubs.”

Highlighting the apathy in the investigation process, Borah said, “Tigers are very intelligent animals. They might target easy prey, like livestock and humans, if they are injured or old and weak. A healthy animal would never target humans. If the concerned tigress was suspected of killing 13 people since 2016, it should have been investigated much earlier, given the advancement in forensic tests and methods today.”

He said that to safeguard the human population and in the larger interest of saving a wildlife species, it becomes imperative to “remove problem animals” sometimes. “Doing so will help in generating larger public support, especially from communities living in the fringes of protected areas and depending on the forests for their livelihood. However, identifying a problem animal is a herculean task that involves strong evidence, including forensics.” He stated that if an animal is identified as a problem, the best forest departments and states can do is to ensure that standard protocols and guidelines are followed closely.

On Avni’s orphaned cubs, Borah says: “The best option is to leave them alone. If they have learnt to hunt (other animals), they might probably do well. ‘Rescuing’ them would be pointless.”

(In arrangement with Mongabay.com, a source for environmental news reporting and analysis. The views expressed in the article are those of Mongabay.com. Feedback: [email protected])